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The Persuasiveness of Democratic Majorities

Australian National University, Australia goodinb{at}coombs.anu.edu.au

David Estlund

Brown University, USA David_Estlund{at}brown.edu

Under the assumptions of the standard Condorcet Jury Theorem, majority verdicts are virtually certain to be correct if the competence of voters is greater than one-half, and virtually certain to be incorrect if voter competence is less than one-half. But which is the case? Here we turn the Jury Theorem on its head, to provide one way of addressing that question. The same logic implies that, if the outcome saw 60 percent of voters supporting one proposition and 40 percent the other, then average voter competence must either be 0.60 or 0.40. We still have to decide which, but limiting the choice to those two values is a considerable aid in that.

Key Words: Condorcet Jury Theorem • epistemic democracy • voter competence

Politics, Philosophy & Economics, Vol. 3, No. 2, 131-142 (2004)
DOI: 10.1177/1470594X04042960


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